This invention relates generally to surgical clip appliers and more specifically to manually actuated clip appliers.
Surgical clips are commonly used to occlude body conduits such as blood vessels. For example, clip appliers have been used to place a clip in an open state over the blood vessel and crimp the clip to a closed state to pinch and hold the vessel in an occluded configuration.
In some cases, the clip appliers are adapted to work with only one clip at a time. The jaws of the clip applier are used to grab a clip from a plurality of clips separated and evenly distributed on a clip rack. The clip is then placed and crimped onto the blood vessel. To place another clip onto the blood vessel, the clip applier is used again to grab a clip from the clip rack using the clip applier's jaws. This process can be tedious, time consuming and difficult, as the clips are quite small. Such clip appliers are commonly referred to as single-fire clip appliers.
By comparison, multiple-fire clip appliers have multiple clips housed in a clip cartridge, which is connected to a handle and trigger assembly. Operation of the trigger causes one of the clips in the cartridge to be automatically loaded into the jaws for ultimate application at the operative site. With such a device, multiple clips can be quickly applied at the site by successive operation of the trigger. However, such clip appliers are often complex requiring numerous components and timing mechanisms and thereby reducing reliability and increasing cost. Also, being automatic and the operational trigger being largely divorced from the application of force to the clip, such appliers often do not offer the tactical feedback to provide a surgeon some indication as to the amount of force being applied by the clip to the body tissue, such as a blood vessel.
Single-fire and multi-fire clip appliers can also be reusable to reduce costs. Reusable clip appliers are sometimes formed of metal and are designed for repeated use and sterilization, for example, in an autoclave. It is this autoclaving procedure, which can result in the bending or otherwise damaging of the jaws, as well as disrupting clip alignment mechanisms and the clip applier's general ability to receive and apply the clip.